sales go down, i'm not happy. merch comes back, i'm not happy. use ups. they make returns easy. unhappy customer becomes happy customer. then, repeat customer. easy returns, i'm happy. repeat customers, i'm happy. sales go up, i'm happy. i ordered another pair. i'm happy. (both) i'm happy. i'm happy. happy. happy. happy. happy. happy happy. i love logistics. this morning, my question -- you pay a hundred bucks for yoga pants. shouldn't they last? plus, why the policies of the catholic church may be a matter of life and death for you, even if you're not catholic. and why the real question of who can get health care has nothing to do with the web site. first, pour yourself a bowl of breakfast cereal. it's time to talk about the economy.

good morning. i'm melissa harris-perry. halloween may be over, but some of you are still coming down off a sugar high after indulging your love for creepy characters. you know who you are. the ones who upon discovering that general mills was releasing its classic monster cereals for a limited time only for halloween, booked to the grocery store to horde as many boxes as possible. we connect you with old friends, boo-berry, franken berry and even the return of fruity yummy mummy, which disappeared from the shelves in 1992, and fruit brute, which hasn't been seen in the cereal aisle for nor than 30 years. of course the not stalgia for these cereals, you can't separate the childhood memories of eating those cereals from what motivated you to want them in the first place. >> franken benry has strawberry

flavored sweetness. >> count chocula has chocolate flavored sweetness. >> and boo berry, blueberry flavored sweetness. >> it inspired a pavlovian craving, congratulations. you've learned a basic lesson in economics 101. one of the first things any beginner econ student learns are about the rules of supply and demand, supply, the quantity of a product or service offered by the market, supposedly driven by demand, the desire for that product by skon sconsumers. econ students also learn about the exceptions to the idea that supply responds to demand. most notably cereal. because the wall of boxes that confronts grocery shoppers in the cereal aisle isn't driven by demand. if the supply of the government-subsidized cheap corn that's keeping those shelves full. the demand comes from not what's in the boxes so much as what's on them, created by the marketing that makes you feel all warm and fuzzy when you hear

the count chocula wants to eat your cereal. all of which have boosted cereal sales well above $7 billion annually and made cereal more consistently profitable not only for other food categories but more than most sectors in the economy, which is why the latest news on america's beloved breakfast foods has me questioning the conventional wisdom about our economic recovery. this week, kellogg's, the largest maker of breakfast cereal, announced lagging cereal sales are forcing the company to cut 7% of its workforce, a total of 2,000 employees who will be losing their jobs. shrinking sales and declining demand are part of a trend that has plagued the breakfast cereal industry for the past three years. turns out consumers are deciding no amount of fuzzy feelings for the characters on the front of box is worth the five bucks that it takes for them to take it home, which makes me e reconsider a few things we

thought we knew about how our economy works during recovery. for example, brand loyalty. it seems to no longer be working for breakfast cereal as an industry and maybe it' not working so well for the economy either. in 2011, a survey fromcom score measuring consumer behavior found the percentage this reporting buying the brand they most wanted declined from 54% in 2008 to 45% in 2010 to 43% in 2011. meanwhile, 38% said they bought whatever comparable brand was on sale. and 19% just bought whatever product was cheapest. so perhaps it's not enough to create demand, to drive economic recovery when consumers don't have the money to spend on the things that they want. and you know what would give consumers the money they need to buy the things they wanted to drive the economy towards recovery? jobs with a living wage and a reasonably secure future all

allowing workers to open their wallets and buy everything from breakfast cereals to new homes. the new jobs numbers yesterday released an interesting tail. unemployment ticked up to 7.3% even though employers added far more jobs than economists predicted, 204,000 job, but government jobs slipped by another 12,000, meaning nearly 100,000 public sector jobs have been lost this year alone. americans are hungry for substantive work. steel-cut oatmeal with bananas, if you will. but our froot loops lawmakers are on a short-term sugar high of deficit reduction. on friday, economist paul krugman quote, "the bitter irony, then, is is that it turns out that by failing to address unemployment, we have, in fact, been sacrificing the future too. what passes these days for sound policy is in fact a form of economic self-mutilation will which will cripple for many years to come." president obama echoed that

sentiment during a speech in new orleans yesterday. >> the first thing we should do is stop doing things that undermine our businesses and our economy overthe past few years. this constant cycle of manufactured crises and self-inflicted wounds that have been coming out of washington. and it's like the gears of our economy, every time they are just about to take off, suddenly somebody taps the brakes and says not so fast. >> joining me today senior fellow at the manhattan institute and former policy adviser to governor mitt romney. and claire mckenna, policy analyst at the national employment law project. peter goodman, global news editor of "the huffington post" and author of "past due: the end of easy money and the renewal of the american economy." and heather mcgee, the vice president of policy and outreach. nice to have you all here with your bowls of fruit loops in front of you. peter, what are the things that

we think we know about economic recovery that this particular long-term sort of limping along economy are challenging us on? >> well, this recovery -- and i would put that in quotation marks -- beggers the concept of recovery. it's been a recovery for the same people who benefitted from the bubbles that preceded the recovery, the dotcom bubble, the housing bubble. if you are well educated, if you are in the upper income strata, you have done very well the last few months. the stock market has done well, housing prices are recovering, unemployment has never been all that high for you and now it's coming down and the opportunities are coming back. if you're in the camp that never got the upside of the bubbles and then suffered a calamitous downside, which is to say people who have seen -- and we're talking, you know, 80% of the labor force who have seen stagnation and outright declines in their wages for 25-plus years, then what you've got now is more of the same. you've got very limited working opportunities. you've got few opportunities to

increase your wages. meanwhile, health care, housing, education have gone up historically and you are in the same squeeze you've been looking at for decades. >> one of the ways we used to think we could juice the economy, heather, was we know that people who are poor or living right at the margins at the front tier of their income, if they get just marginally more income, we know they spend it. they're not going to save it, not use it to pay down debt, they use it on consumer items and that usually gins up the economy a bit. is there something you saw in yesterday's job numbers that suggest to you either that we're not doing that or that doing that doesn't seem to be working? >> we're simply not doing enough of it. that idea that the best way to feel the recovery is to get more money into the hands of people who will spend it has become ideologically divided. you had wit the bush administration at the end of its term and the recovery act, which

did that, which was a really beautiful act of legislation that really tried to make sure that people were going to spend the money, people were most victimized by the recession had from food stamps to housing assistance to direct job creation was really oriented there and that's where you get the most bang for the buck. since 2010 when the tea party took over, you've had this ideological drive take, literally, food out of the kitchens of the people who most need it with the food stamp cults, with sequestration, and so we are seeing that exactly as the president said, that break, that is really ideological and mean spirited is actually what's causing the slow in the recovery. >> let me ask you about that ideological aspect, particularly the extension with -- cut spending, and that those things would generate more profits, more private industry, create more security within the

business industry and create more jobs. but the deficit is ticking down pretty dramatically. we've made enormous cults as a result of sequester and in fact jobs are -- we saw unemployment tick up by a tiny bit in this last quarter. isn't that indicative that that ideology is this -- >> i wouldn't say that. i would agree with peter's characterization, we're seeing a two-tiered recovery. the investor class is doing very well because of the sugar high of monetary policy. the federal reserve is pumping money into the economy and that's particularly benefiting banks and investors and people who own housing. for the middle class, they ear being hammered by the fact that the cost of hiring people has increased because of expanded regulations and taxes on smaller businesses and that's making it hard for businesses to hire. a lot of businesses aren't hiring or moving people to part-time work, which is less stable. >> but businesses are hiring. that's what the numbers show. we end up with 204,000 jobs but unemployment still ticks up in

part because it's the public sector that is shedding them. that's not about increased regulation, which would make more government jobs. >> you would also chi thi with the story you're telling that corporate profits weren't at near record high. the story that businesses don't have the money to hire people because of the onerous regulations and taxes isn't borne out by corporate profits being at a record high. >> that's not what i'm saying. the thing is there's uncertainty in the economy, about regulation, future taxes due to fiscal instability, and people are saying if my taxes are going up next year or the year after, do i want to invest in someone longer term. >> i might suggest i think that uncertainty comes from things like the government shutdown. we'll stay on that. one quick question before we go to break here. aren't some jobs, they're kind count chocula, just not coming back. we saw blockbuster close down this week. the other sort of thing we need to think about is what sorts of jobs are possible to create. >> that's right. we're facing an issue of sort of

the quality of jobs that are being recovered. so the last few months certainly showed strong job growth, but the kinds of jobs that have come back, they pay low wage, they don't provide an opportunity for, you know, career advancement, although we are seeing people more and more spending their careers in these low-wage jobs. yesterday we're seeing in this report the return of jobs in the retail sector, in restaurants specifically. again, these are lower quality jobs, lower paying jobs that are really sort of dominating our recovery. >> stay with us. when we come back, more and more people think that it is time to raise the minimum wage. we'll talk about that on the other side of the break. my asthma's under control. i don't miss out... you sat out most of our game yesterday! asthma doesn't affect my job... you were out sick last week. my asthma doesn't bother my family...

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it's been nine months since president obama issued his call to congress in february in his state of the union address. >> tonight, let's declare that in the wealthiest nation on north one who works full-time should have to live in poverty and raise the federal minimum wage to $9 an hour. let's tie the minimum wage to the cost of living so that it finally becomes a wage you can live on. >> since then, congress has responded to that call, well, pretty much with the same nothing that they've done about the federal minimum wage since the last increase in 2007. this week, the minimum wage got some attention in washington as the white house threw its support behind a senate bill that would increase the current $7.25 federal wage to as much as $10.10 per hour.

democrats may advance the bill to the senate floor before the thanksgiving break according to politico.com. but without support from senate republicans, the bill would fall short of the 60-vote super majority needed to break a gop filibuster. unfortunately for work workers -- excuse me. fortunately for workers the states aren't simply waiting for congress to act. tuesday new jersey became the fifth state to add a minimum wage to its constitution after voters approved a ballot measure that increased the state's minimum to $8.25 an hour. the vote also made new jersey the 11th state to implement automatic minimum wage adjustments tied to the increase in inflation. so, heather, how much would a minimum wage hike impact sort of what we're seeing in terms of economic recovery? nigh think it would be an enormous boost to the economy, would add millions of jobs in the subsequent year. what's so important also in addition to the economic impact, i have to say, is actually that it would tell americans across the country, not just the ones

who have been able to get out and raise their own wages by doing battle initiatives as states have done, that congress actually cares about someone other than the donor class. the president could say that statement and have a round of applause and have the dial tests go up because 80% of the general public agrees that no one should work full-time and be in poverty. that seems deeply un-american to people. but in the report that you profiled last year called stacked deck, we looked at what the donor class thinks about issues like that, and people who give the majority of donations to campaigns are actually opposed to that very principle of people being able to work full-time and not be in poverty. >> almost always if we do a minimum wage story, what happens is someone brings a small business owner, almost always. in, the same small business owner to the table and say they if you raise the minimum wage i won't be able to hire, it will have a negative impact on business. increasingly we see reports saying that's not what happens. we've seen minimum wages

increase before. is it ayn ideological question? >> the empirical literature is pretty overwhelming if you increase minimum wage you increase the cost of hiring and therefore you have less jobs. >> that is flatly untrue. >> overwhelming. >> you can look at the literature. washington state, to pick one example, the minimum wage went up, employment went up. that's just not true. >> to repeat, the overwhelming economic literature is raising the cost of -- >> saying it twice doesn't make it true. it's a lie that's at the heart of the war -- >> you can interrupt me, but the thing is we'll have the opportunity now with new jersey. we can see if new jersey's economy, what happens to those minimum wage jobs. 99% of all full-time jobs pay more than minimum wage. what you're doing is affecting things at the margins for young people who have higher unemployment -- >> it's not young people. you know, i know that story, and there was a time in america where that was -- when that was accurate, when it was young people working seasonal jobs for minimum wage, but it's increase

lig people making their whole lives on minimum wage. >> the majority of adults, people earning the minimum wage is over 20 years old. economic research in the last 20 years show minimum wage increases have no discernible e effect on job loss. the thing is you have to consider, too, that there are efficiency costs to consider. i mean, while, you know, there are costs related to obviously paying workers wages that they, in fact, deserve and could live off of, you know, paying workers more decreases turnover, for example. and workers are going to increase their productivity because, you know, if you're getting paid more, you're frankly just more willing -- you know, you have the incentive to do your job -- >> let me ask about something that always surprises me that it's not sort of bipartisan and id ideologic ideological, about infrastructure. listen to the president in my hometown, in new orleans, in a place where infrastructure is a big deal and talking about infrastructure yesterday.

>> think about our infrastructure. in today's global economy, businesses are going to take root and grow wherever there's the fastest, most reliable transportation and communications networks. they can go anywhere. so china's investing a whole lot in infrastructure. europe is investing a whoet lot in infrastructure. brazil's investing a whole lot in infrastructure. what are we doing? nationally, we're falling behind. we're relying on old stuff. >> so, peter, particularly with governor christie being re-elected by such huge margins in new jersey after having turned down federal infrastructure dollars, why isn't infrastructure the thing that brings everybody at the table together? >> this is the low-hanging fruit of this conversation. i just came back from a week in china, actually, where, in fact, the manufacturing economy is boosted for 20 years because of a very intelligent government-led now maybe excessive but nonetheless useful investment in infrastructure. if you build roads and ports and highways and you upgrade schools and you invest in innovative

capacity at universities, you will get better ideas, you'll get the ability to ship products from places where products can't reach so, you actually get the market efficiencies that market fundamentalists are preaching about all the time with merit. you'll get more jobs. you'll get more growth. and the dollars that you pay construction workers will cycle through the economy and create more opportunities for others. i think the reason why we haven't gotten infrastructure is because the business class that's in a position to push for it would rather harp on, oh, regulations and taxation are stifling the economy. they know that's a false narrative. but they like the money in their pocket. the individuals who are sitting at the tops of large corporations, who heather points out have been raking in massive profits, they like the toe lowe tax rates and they're willing to trade economic growth for the rest of us. >> even in the long term, obviously, infrastructure certainly benefits corporations. stick with us. i want to talk about one more disparity that exists within our changing economy. there are some extremely white jobs in america. you might be surprised to find

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[ male announcer ] nissan. innovation that excites. now get a $279 per month lease on a 2014 nissan pathfinder. ♪ the story of unemployment in america is told largely in 30-day increments, on the first friday. there's a more persistent truth about the labor market. black unemployment is higher than hispanic unemployment, which itself is higher than white unemployment. this hasn't just been true for the last year or the last decade. it's been true for the last four decades and beyond. since 1973, the story of the u.s. workforce has always looked like this. unchanging racial stratification in which african-americans have consistently had the highest levels of unemployment followed by latinos with the lowest rates of joblessness among white

americans. that graph, and sort of its consistency over the course of the past four decades mean these job numbers mean something different for these communities. >> right. in fact, one of the things worth pointing out is that the loss of government jobs has hid african-american communities particularly hard because, you know, legacy of systemic discrimination. i mean, for long periods of time, african-americans and still to this day, of course, were barred from the same opportunities in the private sector, so a lot of people would strategically get jobs in the public sector. >> i want to pause here for a moment because i know people don't always believe that when you say active discrimination in the private sector, look, that's just not true. this is one of my favorite findings reported this week in "the nation" in an article called "boxed in," how criminal records keep you unemployed for life. it's data from a princeton professor. it shows the likelihood of getting a callback on a resume

with a criminal record, white folks with no criminal record did about 34% of callbacks. that's the highest. but white americans are with a criminal record get 17% callbacks whereas african-americans with no criminal record get only 14%. so in other words, to be white with a criminal record is still better in private employment opportunity than to be black without one. >> one of the things that was interesting about that chart is asian unemployment was lower than white unemployment. i think that's something that's nice, that the bureau of labor statistics is measuring because for a long time they didn't measure the difference between asians and d -- i think it's important to understand to the degree there are ethnic or racial disparity, asians are doing pretty well. it's worth learning why asians are doing well and outperforming whites on these measures. >> although it is true in terms of wealth, we saw actually a faster decrease of asian-american wealth in the context of this particular economic downturn. we know that wealth is that cushion that protects people

from economic downturnings. >> i actually want to echo the point that peter earlier made. you know, we're seeing these austerity measures and public sector layoffs. they are really having a serious impact on the african-american community. something like 1 in 5 jobs lost at the state and local level resulted in a pink slip for african-americans. and they are now suffering from disproportionately higher rates of long-term unemployment in this recession. >> it's worth the president yesterday in new orleans labeled immigration as the second most important thing -- immigration reform, second most important thing we need to do for the economy. why would immigration reform make a difference? >> it would make a difference for a number of reasons. first, there has been this downward pressure in the low-wage sector of the economy because of the fact that you can hire someone who has basically no civil, economic, or social rights, and so you can, you know, pay them wage that is rampant among undocumented immigrant heavy industries like retail and restaurants.

and it would also create a higher floor. and it would create job growth because you would have a lot more wages in the hands, again, of people who are going to spend it. >> to go spend it. stick right there. there's one more set of numbers i want us to look at when we e come back. if the employment numbers we saw this month and the upward revisions from the previous two months, although strong, there is a group being left behind. who they are, why, when we come back. with my friends, we'll do almost anything. out for drinks, eats. i have very well fitting dentures. i like to eat a lot of fruits. love them all. the seal i get with the super poligrip free keeps the seeds from getting up underneath. even well-fitting dentures let in food particles. super poligrip is zinc free. with just a few dabs, it's clinically proven to seal out more food particles so you're more comfortable and confident while you eat. a lot of things going on in my life and the last thing i want to be thinking about is my dentures.

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for the long-term unemployed, those out of work and searching for a job for at least 27 weeks, federal unemployment insurance has been a critical lifeline to surviving joblessness. by the end of the year, if congress fails to reauthorize federal jobless aid, 1.3 million workers will see their lifeline cut off.

by march of 2014, that number could increase to an additional 850,000 workers who will exhaust their state unemployment insurance and have no access to federal aid. among that population of long-term unemployed are some of the middle-class workers who have been hardest hit by the recession, the 3 million members of the baby boom generation workers over 50 but still far from retirement who suddenly find themselves jobless after a lifetime of employment. the story and struggles of some of those americans is told in the documentary film "set for life." >> i, you know, figured that i would work probably till 67 or 70, whatever, and, you know, everything would be like what the last generation. but it hasn't worked out that way. >> i'm educated. i'm knowledgeable in my field, and i still don't have a job. and it's frustrating. >> i never in my wildest dreams thought at age 50 i'd be out of work for an extended period of time. >> the producer of that film is

joining me here. sue, your film really challenges our idea of who the unemployed are. >> well, first of all, melissa, thank you very much for having me on the show today. that was part of our point. >> when we look at that and how those over 55 are kind of hard hit, what are the key aspects that are hardest hit for them? >> well, we did 100 interviews with people over the age of 50 who lost their job in the great recession. between 2010 and 2012. and so the first thing that happens obviously is they lose their job. they lose their health insurance. then they have to dip into their savings to pay for their bills and their mortgage. and at the time home prices were declining in value so they didn't have the option of

selling their home. many of their homes were under water. we know foreclosure rates in the u.s. skyrocketed. 5% of americans lost their homes and 5% of our original 100 interviewees lost their homes. these are all kind of the economic data points. i'm not talking about the personal, familial, emotional, and health consequences that long-term unemployment had for older workers. >> what kinds of solutions exist? how can government policy generate incentives to hire particular classes of workers, particularly workers like the long-term unemployed over 50? >> i just want to first, though, note the impact, as you said, of the expiration of federal unemployment insurance benefits. over 2 million long-term unemployed workers will be impacted by the end of march if congress fails to act. and the fact is our economy is still much too weak for this critical program to go away. long-term unemployment is still three times higher than it was when the recession began.

and we hear from so many long-term unemployed workers that, you know, the fact of extended unemployment itself just becomes a distinct obstacle to working again. and it really is all about spurring demand, and at least in the short term what we can do is at least make sure that people who are out of work have a strong safety net to get boy bi. >> we talk about discrimination around questions of race, but there's also kind of ageism and an assumption that you don't want a 50-plus worker. >> enormous. we know that, you know, i.t. is a huge fast-growing industry in this country. you need to know how to this use a computer and the latest software. i've had employers tell me if they're looking at a resume from somebody out of work for six months or year or more, they assume they're not current on the latest technology, whether that's fair or not. i've had lots of people, like the people profiled in this really important film, you know, talk about the hopelessness of knowing that -- if they can even

get an interview, i mean, stories are legion, people go months with no callbacks whatsoever. when they do get the callbacks there's a palpable sense of disappointment from the person sit across the table, just an assumption that, you know, well if you're already middle-aged you've probably lost your mojo and that's not something that you can recover from regardless of your skills. >> as opposed to having developed a life-long track record of work and work ethic and experience and knowledge. >> i love that you ask what could be possible. i think it's always good for us to describe what's going on but then remember that another way could be possible. we could have, a, not laid off so many government workers. these people that were profiled in your film would be great people to have great second careers as teachers, caregivers. why couldn't we have for the long-term unemployed -- this should be part of the social contract that you are working and trying and seeking a job. there are still three job seekers for every one opening. the idea that people are sitting on their duffs and not working hard enough, there aren't enough

jobs. the government could directly create jobs and meet the needs we have in our communals by employing people who have been unemployed for a certain number of time. >> there's work that needs to be done all around us. >> exactly. >> i want to pick up on that point and it sort of relates to your last question. during the recovery act we saw a program administered by the emergency fund offering wage subsidies to businesses and nonprofits to hire specifically long-term unemployed and disadvantaged workers and there was success in the state during that time, but unfortunately the program expired at the end of 2010. >> when you think about the hundred people -- actually, let's take a moment. i want to listen to one of the 100 people that you talked to. i do think their voices are important. i want to hear about this notion of having been downsized and how much it down sizes expectations. let's take a listen. >> i have downsized my expectations dramatically. i'm applying for a lot of jobs that only require a high school education, and i can't seem to get interviews for those either.

>> people don't want to hire people that are older. just pretty much that simple. >> what's the most important thing you learned from listening to people talk about their experiences here? >> well, those two clips that you just showed, melissa, are really important because one of the reasons that older workers are often prevented from -- or employers are reluctant to hire older workers is they think that what older workers earned before is the only salary at which they're willing to get back to work. many of the older workers that we interviewed, they lost their long-term -- they lost their unemployment insurance months or even years ago, and they just want to get back to work. so they're willing to accept a reduction in pay. and even though we can all say perhaps that's not the ideal, people are realistic. and they don't have any other resources and they're looking for a way to continue to pay their bills and support their families. so i think what stan said there where he said downsized my expectations is a very relevant

point for older workers. and it maybe not be something we wish for them, but people have accepted that. i think it's really important to understand that people don't -- when you lose your job and you've worked at the same company for 25 or 30 years, the next day you don't go out and say i'm going to take a pay cut of 25% or 50%. adjustment process. >> takes a while to get there. the voices in the film are critically important. i thank you for that work. thank you to peter goodman, susan siprelle, claire mckenna this morning. heather mcghee, i'm going to see you again in the next hour. up next, $100 yoga pants, our thighs, and how all women know what i mean when i say the gap. my letter of the week is next. as a business owner, i'm constantly putting out fires. so i deserve a small business credit card with amazing rewards. with the spark cash card from capital one, i get 2% cash back on every purchase, every day. i break my back around here.

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yoga pants cost up to $130 a pair. one pair of pants. and women love them. the brand has a devoted following that has turned the company into a financial juggernaut with a market value of $9.9 billion. lululemon expects to sell well over $1 billion worth of merchandise this year. and yet the company's founder says your thunder thighs are just not welcome in his pants. it's a classic example of biting the thighs that feed you, and that's why my letter today is to chip wilson, the founder of lululemon. dear chip, it's me, melissa. let's take a look at how you responded this week to claims that your company's new line of pants is lacking in the quality department. >> there are complaints of pilling on the fabric. >> yeah, but there have always been pilling. the thing is that women will wear seat belts that don't work or they'll wear a purse that

doesn't work or quite frankly some women's bodies just actually don't work for it. >> i'm sorry. excuse me. did i hear that right? it's women's bodies that don't work? >> for the pants? >> they don't work for some women's bodies. >> so what type of body don't work in lieu lu lemon pants, chip? can you be more specific? >> you know, the rubbing through their thigh, how much pressure is there over a period of time and how much -- >> oh. it's for women whose thighs touch. you've already said that lululemon won't make pants bigger than a size 12. arguing that the extra fabric would make pants significantly more expensive to make. and you couldn't charge bigger women more for bigger sizes without a public relations disaster. then there was that time that you explained that breast cancer is partly caused by women working outside the home and

taking birth-control pills. yup. and the fact that you put the catchphrase on lululemon's shopping bags and claim that your vision for the company was inspired by the book which was based on objectivism, the school of thought that everyone should be just out for themselves. a yoga store. now, all that could maybe be forgiven if the $100 pants were perfect. but they're not. in march lululemon had to recall 17% of its pants because they were too sheer and the company's stock and reputation took a hit. even then the company suggested that the pants weren't the problem. what women were wearing was the problem. they were wearing the wrong size. but here's the thing. despite what thigh gap inspiration would have you believe, most women, nearly all of us have thighs that, you know, rub against each other, especially when working out, which is what your clothes are presumably for. i mean, my thighs touch, chip.

and in order to achieve the thigh gap that you apparently think lululemon customers should have, which, by the way, the obsession that some, perts have said is causing eating disorders in young women, to get that thigh gap, one must not only be thin but have especially wide hips. someone would have to rearrange her skeleton to achieve it. so instead of blaming our bodies for your poorly made pant, lululemon would do well to design clothes to accommodate our bodies. the thighs wear out too fast? resupport the fabric there. make the pants withstand the rubbing. or despite the cult-like devotion to your products, women will take their thighs to another retailer, one who won't expect to pay outrageous prices for the sense of being body shamed. sincerely, melissa. nt ] which airline, sir?

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how much could you spend to save your life? $10 now? $20,000? every dollar you have and you'd be willing to borrow? the tens of thousands of americans on a kidney transplant waiting list is not a question. there is a robust international market for human kidneys. trade is illegal but not inaccessible and many desperate patients unable to find volunteers turn to doctors willing to transplant organs purchased on an open market. while the relatively wealthy wrestle with what they will spend to save their lives, impoverished workers in underdeveloped nations face the question of what their vital organs are worth. would you sell a kidney if it would lift your family from poverty or educate your child? "tales from the organ trade" follows the case of one canadian man who turned to the black market to obtain a kidney. >> diagnosed with a kidney disease. after about nine years my

specialist suggested that he's not able to help me much more. so i started to inquire about doing a transplant overseas. >> when he got the news that there might be a possibility to go out of the country, we just jumped. >> joining me now is the director, writer, and producer of "tales from the organ trade," filmmaker brick esther beanstock. i found the film challenging. i thought i'd be outraged at the idea of people buying organs but i ended up feeling like, hmm, i'm not sure about this. tell me how you felt making the film. >> i had the same experience as you had making it. when i first embarked on making the film, i thought it was much more a story of exploitation, desperation on the side of the recipients but desperation on the other the side of the equation.

as i started filming i started questioning my own ethical assumptions on the issue because i met people who press would say were coerced into selling their organ, were forced, kidnapped, their organs were stolen. but when i finally met them, and i met dozen who is sold their kidneys, some benefited from it. that kind of threw me off. it was cognitive dissonance. the intent of the film ultimately was to take viewers on the same ethically ambiguous journey i took while filming it. >> the film absolutely succeeds in that way in that, you know, i started asking myself, okay, if we morally applaud, if our b bioethics are, oh, you're willing to volunteer a kidney, how generous of you, and yet doctors are paid, insurance companies are paid, you know, everyone involved in the process is paid, and sometimes really enormous salaries, but the folks who are giving it up, it's only allowable if it's a volunteer. if you do it in order to reduce your own poverty or that of your family, it's somehow not ethical

to contribute. >> the term is, and i questioned ethicists that i filmed, you keep saying these people are coerced. i've met them. they don't appear to be coerced. the notion is they're coerced by their own p poverty. of course they are. people are coerced to work in mines and as firefighters. people make choices because they need to earn money. but i find the notion that because somebody's impoverished that it's patronizing to say because they're impoverished they can't make a legitimate decision about what to do with their own bodies and lives. >> because it is a black market and not a regulated one, the fact there is exploitation, even if you think perhaps there could be financial recompense for giving up an organ, in the current market in the way it works they're getting very tiny portions of this money, sometimes as little as $1,500, $2,000. >> not only that they're getting tiny portions. they're always shortchanged. they're never given what they're promised. they're not being tested properly. there's no safety net for them

if something goes wrong. what you see in the black market, you're absolutely right. the black market is by definition bad. and that's what we're leading people to, a black market. and the other thing that i found interesting is that i wanted to meet the people who decided to go and seek out a black market kidney. these are generally law-abiding citizen who is suddenly are willing to wire upwards of $100,000 to a broker on the other side of the planet. what kind of desperation do you have to feel to do that? and that was interesting, too. i felt empathetic. i understood the people who are doing it. i didn't see them as rich, wealthy westerners, harvesting the organs of the poor. so i went into the film with no judgment and came out with a very different feeling about it. the film raises more questions an answers but it's certainly -- there are questions that need to be raised because the waiting lists are very long. people, if they have a chance to live, they're going to choose to live, and you can't fault them for doing that. >> a lovely point.

it does, in fact, raise more questions than it answers. that's part of what makes the film complex and interesting. you can see this film, this is rik esther benstock "tales from the organ trade" airs on hbo tomorrow 12:30 eastern time. thank you. up next, we'll keep talking act bioethics. this time in a new way. the growing way in which the catholic church is impacting your health care. and whether you're catholic or not, you're going to want to know about this. for over 125 years, we've been bringing people together. today, we'd like people to come together on something that concerns all of us. obesity. and as the nation's leading beverage company, we can play an important role. that includes continually providing more options. giving people easy ways to help make informed choices. and offering portion controlled versions of our most popular drinks. it also means working with our industry

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welcome back. i'm melissa harris-perry harris. we have been watching pope francis since the smoke emerged in march and we love him, especially when he gets up close and personal with the people, like he did last week. during the year of faith celebration, a little boy would not let the pope be and he did

not seem to mind, suffer the little child throughout the event and even seating the boy on his chair while he spoke. on wednesday, pope francis came to a man in audience severely disfigured by a disease. he went out to the man and prayed with him. this is the kind of pope we hope to see from the religious leaders. but embracing someone is not what we're used to seeing from the catholic church, splooes at least in terms of policy. these symbolic acts illuminate pope francis's effort to open up discourse on doctrine that the church hasn't been willing to change ever. this week, the pope opened up discourse in an unprecedented way. he is polling catholics, sending surveys to parishes around the globe, asking questions ranging from what pastoral e attention can be give on the people who live in these types of, that is same-sex, unions.

and in case where is nonpracticing catholics or declared nonbelievers request the celebration of marriage, describe how this pastoral challenge is dealt with. also do the divorce and remarried feel marginalized or suffer from the impocket of receiving the sacraments? if you're not catholic or a lapsed catholic, you may think what difference does all this make to me? but it does. it could be a difference of life or death because the policy of the pope and the church he leads has a reach that affects all of us. that's because the catholic church isn't just a church. it could very well be your hospital too. new information from the aclu and nonprofit organizations like merger watch indicates that while the number of americans public and secular nonprofit hospitals dropped dramatically between 2001 and 2011, the number of hospitals affiliated with the catholic church shot up 16% during that time. according to mother jones, 10 of the 25 largest nonprofit hospital systems in the country

are catholic and catholic hospitals care for 1 in 6 patients. those hospitals get their orders from the united states conference of catholic bishop, a very conservative group now us the wlg the obama white house over the affordable care act and contraception. those bishops are the men who are setting hospital policy on issues ranging from providing information about available treatment to addressing the tragedies of abnormal pregnancy to dispensing birth control for women and their reach is growing. joining me now is low is utley, director of the merger watch project, which focuses on the issue of catholic hospital takeovers. author brian siltner, chairperson of the department of flos ti, theology and religious studies at sacred heart university in connecticut. debra stullberg, a family physician at the university of chicago who previously worked at nonsecular hospital taken over by a catholic one. and teresa younger, activist from connecticut, part of a successful campaign in her

community to prevent a hospital merger. nice to have you all here at the table. >> thank you. >> talk to me about the merger watch, about what we are seeing and why there are more catholic hospitals now. >> merger watch has noticed an enormous increase in number of catholic hospitals across the country. part of it is that catholic hospitals have organized themselves into giant systems like ascension health care, which now runs 93 hospitals in 23 states across the this country. it has annual revenues of $6 billion. half of that comes from our public moneys from medicare and medicaid reimbursements. as these hospital systems get bigger and bigger, they take over non-catholic hospitals, and that's where we're seeing a real problem. we're seeing circumstances like in southeastern arizona where a woman suffering a miscarriage went to the emergency room at the local hospital. the doctors there said we're really sorry but you can't --

this pregnancy is not going to make it. we should end it now to prevent infection. then the hospital administrator said, oh, no, wait, that's against catholic rules and they spent this poor women 08 miles away to tucson for treatment. that's not right. >> those kinds of stories conflict so fundamentally with the things that i love best about the catholic church, and not just about the catholic church but about catholic hospitals, which have often sort of stood in the gam for the poor, stood in the gap for underserved communities, but then when it comes up against a faith claim, suddenly medical care can't be provided. how do we reconcile something like that? >> we have to admit it's a possible tension and i think it's going to be a matter of what message you want to lead with and what's going to -- and whether you're going to kind of give the benefit of the doubt. i think for many years coming out of the second vatican council and whether the catholic church has always wanted to put its best foot forward, is

serving the common good, helping those most vulnerable, the poor. we do serve so many people through hospitals, social charities and education, and we should be respectful of society in all these ways and they are. but the other side of that is we don't want to give up our distinctive, you know, beliefs when we kind of go into the public sphere, and that's true and there has to be a balance struck there. i think in recent years the bishops -- under john paul and benedict, have been so concerned about just our rely jos frigioum and our institutions that they're always leading with that foot. like you, i'm hoping pope francis might say it's this other face of the church that's got to be our -- >> our key face. talk to me as a doctor on this question. what does it mean to say to someone i see that you need this medical care, i am capable of providing this medical care for you, but there's an

administrator responding to a faith claim which says i cannot provide this medical care. >> that's exactly right. it's very hard. i experienced it when my hospital where i was working got taken over by a catholic hospital. and since then i've talked to a lot of doctors who have had a similar experience trying to take the best care of women that they can, that that their training tells them to, the care that women want based on their own value, and as they say, here's the treatment you need, we're trying to preserve your health and then there's an outside force, often someone with no medical training, who says sorry, not here, and it may mean as lois is describing, a patient having to travel, the delay in treatment can actually risk further harm to the woman or it may mean she doesn't get the treatment at all, in some cases doesn't even know it's an option for her. >> this is one of the pieces that is most distressing to me, that not even information can often be given, so it's one thing to say, for example, we're not in this facility going to

provide abortions on demand, whatever that means, right, but it's another thing to say we're not going to tell you that birth-control pills exist and we're not going to tell you that these sets of options exist. as you have sort of tried to work with communities to push back, what are the things that really rile people up when they learn about the catholic health policies? >> well, i think, you know, many people pick hospitals that are in their communities. they don't even know that they're functioning under these administrative restrictions in any way, shape, or form, but i think what happens, it's not about abortion. at the end of the day, you know, what we saw in connecticut when we were working on this, it was about tubal ligations. it was about a woman who had two children and she and her partner decided that they no longer wanted to have children and that they were going to use tubal ligation as a means of birth control and that the hospital was telling them you can't have that procedure done here. >> even during a c-section.

you're already opened. >> already there. you know? so what it says is that women and their families cannot make the health decisions that they need to make that's best for them and their families and/or it means that a community is going to be without any kind of access to these health services. we've been hearing so much in the pushback against aca, this idea of government being between you and your doctor. literally, i lover the pope, but i don't want this guy or anybody else between me and the medical decisions that i'm making. >> often it's the local bishop, which can change. i've talked to a number of doctors who were told when they took a job at a catholic hospital, your medical judgment and what's best for the patient is the most important thing and we will not get in the way. a month late err new bishop is appointed and they say all the rules have changed and suddenly every case of impending miscarriage like this, you know, we have to send to the ethics committee. again, it's the delay in treatment and no medical reason

for the delay. >> stay with us. we'll have more on this as we come back. but first i want to sort of point you -- we have a piece about this issue on our website right now. a terrific piece by a reporter here, meredith clark. when we come back, more into the issue of how communities are pushing back against these mergers and if it means that they're going to have to risk having no hospital at all. that's next. so ally bank has a raise your rate cd

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a prime example of the growing impact of catholic hospitals is unfolding in washington state. according to a recent report, despite washington state's recent victory for pot legalization, marriage equality, and reproductive rights, one

area where voters haven't had much of a say at all is in the wave of mergers and alliances between catholic hospital chains and secular taxpayer supported community hospitals. by the end of this year, the aclu estimates nearly half of washington state's hospital beds could be under catholic influence or outright control. p scenario is a common one. taxpayer support hasn't been enough to keep these hospitals afloat on their own so they seek out alliances to stay open. without alliances for a catholic institution, they would likely be bound by the ethical and religious directives for catholic health care services. among those directives, it is not permissible to initiate or recommend treatment for sexual assault victims that have a direct effect the removal, destruction, or other of an implanted ova. so they deny them emergency contraception routinely provided

to sexual assault survivors so they won't have to face the possibility of carrying a pregnancy resulting from rape. washington's democratic governor and attorney general are fighting back directing the state's department of health to update its hospital merger oversight process and require that all public hospital districts that offer maternity service also provide birth control and abortions. it remains to be seen how effective they'll be. one of the questions i had is, so, if you end up with delayed access and negative health consequences as a result, are catholic hospitals, because they're operating under this directive, somehow free from tort and malpractice suits? because typically that's the thing that sort of pushes providers to behave in one way or another. >> there have been cases of rape victims suing when they were not given emergency contraception. the problem is in the case where is they sued they were denied the information but luckily they didn't become pregnant. so there was no damages that they could prove. the catholic hospital's been getting better on this problem of emergency contraception for

rape victim, but it's still inconsistent. really the biggest problem now, and it's these washington cases that you spoke about, is these emergency services and also tubal ligation. >> mm-hmm. you know, this point that was made earlier before the break that it actually matters sort of bishop to bishop, that surprised me. i was thinking the catholic church was a little more hierarchical in that sense. if we were to see new policies coming out from the vatican after pope francis's great survey, how long would it take for that to impact a washington hospital or a connecticut one? >> it seems like it could take a while, although sometimes some things have happened quite dramatically in a fairly short period of time. in the 60s, pope john set a tone because you had to get rid of some older people who were very conservative and deep in the hears of a lot of those bishops they were looking for this breath of presh fresh air and he authorized it. so the influence would be like i think always with the vatican, a

political dimension as well, negotiating behind the scene, pressure they could butt on national conferences but a change would be getting the key cardinals and leaders in the u.s. to work in the conference of catholic bishops to make adjustments in the health care directives for catholic hospitals. >> it feels that's important because for community, the choice between no hospital and a catholic hospital might often lead to saying we'll choose the catholic hospitals because there are so many services communities need. >> absolutely. in the state of krconnecticut, work for the permanent commission on the status of women which looks at public policy on all women's issues. one of the things that government needs to do is to determine howite's going to reimburse medical services and if it's a legal service do we let one religious stand dictate to an entire community what's going to be happening and what's available to those members of the community. i think that's really an important key link that we need

to be aware of, there may only be one hospital within that community for hundreds of miles. i mean, this is not just a matter of going to the next hospital that's the next town over but it's the next hospital that might even provide the service you're looking for is 50 miles away and there's no transportation to get there. then government, we believe, has a role in playing in setting the standards around what services are available in those communities. so, you know, hospitals, whether they are catholic or not, provide a service to the community. they need to let the community know what services are being offered and how they're going to support what services are not being offered. >> one of the things you said, if a procedure is l old, then go on to access. finally, doctor, on this question of access, it feels to me like one of the possibilities here is that there's a bigger coalition that when we talk about abortion and termination services, it sometimes shrinks the coalition, but if we talk about tubal ligation and ivf and

all these other women's reproductive health services that are legal, is that part of how we can make this push? >> in fact, we know that the vast majority of american women used contraception at some point in their life. >> even the catholic ones. >> exactly. and even contraception is prohibited in the directives for catholic health care services. if you put a big sign up that says no birth control here, do you think many patients would come? no. women would seek services elsewhere because it is a needed fundamental service for women. part of it also i think is about being open and willing to be in a dialogue about what services women need. >> thank you. this has been something we're closely following and a deep question of ak snesz many different ways. thanks to lois utley. dr. stiltner is going to stay with us. up next, the other website, the other most incredibly important

this thing has to work or the whole thing fails website. but first, i want to bring you up to date on one of the strongest storms to ever make landfall in recorded history. super typhoon haiyan, the equivalent of a category 5 hurricane with sustained wind up to 190 miles per hour and gusts up to 235 miles per hour slammed into the philippines early yesterday morning. this storm is bigger than hurrica hurricane katrina, which hit land at new orleans with 129-mile-per-hour winds and superstorm sandy, which hit new jersey with winds of 94 miles per hour. for some perspective, as this mock-up shows, if super typhoon haiyan were off the eastern coast of the united states, it would stretch from florida to new york. thousands of people were forced to evacuate from the path of the storm, but at least 12 million live in the area hardest hit. rescuers are having a difficult time reaching some of those region, but the red cross estimates the death toll in the philippines alone will reach at

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even though it's a small percentage of folk who is may be disadvantaged, it means a lot to them and it's scary to them, and i am sorry that fer finding themselves in this situation based on assurances they got from me. we've got to work hard to make sure that they know we hear them. >> that was president obama apologizing thursday to people who'd lost health insurance plans that they liked. as we know, that is not the only or isn't the biggest problem with obama care. for all the complaining over healthcare.gov, that it's too slow, that it doesn't always work, people have had a hard time creating accounts, et cetera, for all that, there

is another affordable care act website that's doing even worse. welcome to the spanish language version of the federal government's health insurance exchange where spanish speakers should be able to compare and enroll in health plans and apply for subsidies for medicaid. so, the spanish site has been put on the back burner. you can't even try to use it. the site directs users to call a 1-800-number and to enroll in insurance that way. the obama administration acknowledged back in september that it would delay getting the spanish site up until late october and more recently officials have said it will be functional by the end of november. but latino advocacy groups like the national council of larasa ant buying it and a spokesman said failing to meet deadlines is deepening mistrust of the law in latino communities, something the group is working hard to combat. she said we can't afford to lose this option for the latino community. the latino community has been fundamentally underserved by

health care as it exists today. at the heart of the aca is work to address disparities between rich and poor, among white and black and brown americans, and the law could make progress in closing those gaps. but it could do so much more if certain goff northwesterns would play ball. which brings me to texas. president obama went to dallas this week to thank the navigators for trying to help people sign up for the law and to chide the state's leaders for refusing to take $79 billion in federal dollars to expand their medicaid program and cover 1 million more texans. >> folks who are complaining about how the website's not working and, you know, why isn't obama fixing this, and all these people are uninsured, and yet they're leaving a million people right now without health insurance that they could immediately fix. there's not a lot of lodgic to

that. >> governor rick perwy was quick to shoot back, saying that president obama is, quote, coming to texas in a desperate attempt to salvage his ill conceived and unpopular program from a titanic fate by preaching expansion of the same medicaid system he himself admits is broken. perry, no relationship, went on to say that texas already spends a quarter e of its budget on medicaid and claimed that to expand the program would be to bankrupt the state. more on the persistent disparities in our health care system and rick perry's math up next. mine was earned orbiting the moon in 1971. afghanistan in 2009. on the u.s.s. saratoga in 1982. [ male announcer ] once it's earned, usaa auto insurance is often handed down from generation to generation because it offers a superior level of protection and because usaa's commitment to serve current and former military members and their families is without equal.

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look! one select-a-size sheet of bounty is 50% more absorbent than a full size sheet of the leading ordinary brand. use less with bounty select-a-size. when president obama was in texas this week he made an important point, that texas maybe more than any other state needs obama care. that's because, t has some of the worst health care disparities in the country. about a quarter of the population is uninsured.

that's 6.1 million people. more than the population of most other states. 16% of white texans are uninsured. 23% of black texans lack insurance. and 38% of hispanic texans remain without insurance. which means of all the people without insurance in texas, 60% of them are latino. the texas medicaid program, while one of the biggest in the country by sheer numbers, is also one of most stringent. if you're parent, you don't qualify for medicaid unless you make close to nothing, just less than $5,000 for a single working parent with two kids. and if you don't have kids and aren't disabled, you can't get medicaid at all. the aca's medicaid expansion would change that. any adult making up to 138% of the poverty line, about $15,900 a year for a single adult, could get insured. it would mean insurance for 1 million more people in texas.

that's one-fifth of the estimated 5 million people who would get insurance in every state refusing to expand medicate changed their minds. but texas governor rick perry is one of the many who has refused, and now about 5 million people will fall into a gap they can't qualify for medicaid and they are too po poor for federal insurance subsidies. joining me now to talk about the stubborn state's effect on health disparities is dr. debra stillbetter from the university of chicago, avik roy, former health care adviser to the obama campaign, dr. otis raleigh from the american cancer society and heather mcghee. thanks so much for being here. let me ask this. we know that race is not biology. race is social and political. what does that tell us about racial health disparities? where do they come from? >> most come because people get

less than good care, less than good preventative care. i'm very worried about diets for young kids, how they grow up, lack of exercise, very worried about not getting vaccinations. that's actually much of the root of hypertension for later in life because kids get less than good preventative services. later in life, adults need preventive services as well, treatment of hypertension. we can prevent a lot of heart attack, kidney failure, strokes if we simply did these preventive things. we worry too much in this country about treating people once they're sick and not about preventing the disease. >> this question of preventative care is part of why president obama went to massachusetts and said this obama care is like romney care. one part is it will provide access to preventative care services for a broader group of people and that will bring down health care costs not only for individual households but also

for state and the nation. why, then, are republican governors opting out of something that would, in fact, bring down costs? >> one of the things you brought up, you brought up the disparity in terms of coverage among different ethnic groups. there's also a dispar fi in quality of care separate from coverage and that's one of the big challenges with the medicaid program. for example, in new york state, for every dollar a private insurance pays a doctor, medicaid pays 30 cents. that means a lot of people don't get those preventative screenings. when they get diagnosed for cancer on medicaid, you get diagnosed at a more advanced stage for cancer because it wasn't diagnosed earlier because you didn't have access to primary care. >> that's not wrong that medicaid reimburses at something like half to 60% to what medicare reimburses at but that's not a reason not to expand medicaid? >> right. it would seem you're suggesting the federal government should put more money into medicaid so it can be more generous but i'm assuming that's not what you would say.

>> i think we should spend more money on health care for the poor. >> talk about disparities in general. when we think about the question of these disparities should we be more worried about the floor, whether or not people have a decent life span, quality of life that's better than some previous time or should we care about disparities, that even if the floor is up, if there's a big gap, that should still matter to? >> we should care about both. improving everybody's health is a great thing but inequality also makes us sicker. when people exist in the world and are experiencing racism, are experiencing chronic stress, that leads to worse health outcomes. that leads to perhaps not even knowing that you can go seek care for a problem, how to access care. having access to that point of entry, that primary care provider makes all the difference in the world. and i think closing that gap is key for that. >> that is where i think the most interesting science is going. there's a beautiful documentary called "unnatural causes" which

looks at this issue. it's not just about can you afford to get to a doctor or do you have health insurance, but it's also about the metabolic processes that happen when we are under stress and particularly socioeconomic stress and the stress of status stress because we live in a society where we internalize the feeling of being inferior, where poverty creates levels of stress that literally hurt people's hearts. right? you have heart disease that comes from a hardening of the arteries that is linked to stress, not just from diet or other kind of external factors. >> that's where i wanted to connect these two pieces, doctor. you talk about sort of getting the right kinds of foods and the right sorts of exercise, which we know there's racial strati stratification on that because of residential segregation. but the other work of sherman jackson and others around john henryism and the idea that the stresses, particularly the african-american men experience as a result of inequality actually deteriorate the quality of their cardiovascular health. >> yeah. i actually agree with you that

there's definite links to cardiovascular health. when we start talking about things like cancer, i'm actually more concerned about more environmental things -- diet, lack of exercise, obesity problems. when i talk about diet, i'm very concerned about high caloric intake as opposed to other things. isle point out that poor kids and middle clathsz kids, and this is not a race thing but a socioeconomic thing, poor kids have diets much higher in carbohydrates. middle-class kids have diets higher in protein. >> because carbohydrates are way cheaper. >> right. some of the best data from this comes from scotland, which is basically an all-white country, which has taken tremendous pain to actually categorize people by socioeconomic status and in scotland they wonder why is it that the poor white women in their 50s and 60s have triple negative breast cancer? in the united states, we wonder what is it about being black that increases risk of triple

negative branser? >> we have more on this. up next, more on the health impact of being uninsured. [ female announcer ] arms were made for hugging. hands for holding. feet, kicking. better things than the joint pain and swelling of moderate to severe rheumatoid arthritis. if you're trying to manage your ra, now may be the time to ask about xeljanz. xeljanz (tofacitinib) is a small pill for adults with moderate to severe ra for whom methotrexate did not work well. xeljanz can lower your ability to fight infections, including tuberculosis. serious, sometimes fatal infections and cancers have happened in patients taking xeljanz. don't start taking xeljanz if you have any kind of infection, unless ok with your doctor. tears in the stomach or intestines, low blood cell counts and higher liver tests and cholesterol levels

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easy returns, i'm happy. repeat customers, i'm happy. sales go up, i'm happy. i ordered another pair. i'm happy. (both) i'm happy. i'm happy. happy. happy. happy. happy. happy happy. i love logistics. how does it have an impact on health? adults are more likely to die from a stroke or heart attack if uninsured and diagnosed at a more advanced stage of cancer, more likely to die if they go into a hospital with a more serious condition. communities with a high proportion of uninsured even the insured adults in that community have difficulty getting cared. i want to walk through the disparities and kind of see the extent to which we think having

more insurance and access would make a difference. talk about childhood asthma. what do we know about it as a distar pi and what difference it might make to have insurance access? >> a child should never die of asthma, should never have to be in the icu. asthma is a treatable condition. when you're diagnosed, there are clear guidelines your doctor should be able to offer you. but treatment can be expensive. following all of the regulations can be important. you need a school environment, a whole system to care for that child with asthma and that's what's difficult. >> there was a study maybe in the "journal of pediatrics" who said people who said their children were on medicaid, doctors, 55% of the time if their kid had an acute asthma attack, 5% of the time the doc would say i don't have an appointment for you, whereas if the kid had prooifs insurance, under 10% of the doctors would turn down those patients.

>> if medicaid is the thing a that at this point we know would massively expand who is covering it, saying medicaid is broken, what is the key solution to that? >> i support giving them private insurance through the exchanges. what the arkansas model is doing is one way, it's not perfect but giving people private coverage reimburses. that would give them access to primary care. >> doesn't that keep health care -- >> not necessarily. there are a lot of ways that are dysfunctional and structural. if you structure the insurance product in a different way, you can address a lot of these problems. the problem is medicaid doesn't allow you to do that, so what states do is instead of tweaking the insurance product, they pay doctors in the hospital less because that's the only leverage financially they have. >> the working poor have very generous tax subsidies because i don't see how you can be opposed to the minimum wage on one hand, still say that someone make dlrg

14,000 a year should shop for private health insurance which costs that much. >> very different points. when you raise the minimum wage, you make it harder for people to get jobs. if we subsidize their health care, it's independent of who hires them. if i give them person a large help on coverage of his own, that has no impact on whether or not -- >> why not increase medicaid? >> radical surgery to the program statutorily to actually -- >> let me ask about improving medicaid on another health disparity. that's breast cancer. breast cancer is a tricky one because the incidence is about the same for black and white women, but mortality, like the dying from it, is much higher for black women. and that does seem to have everything to do with the ability to get in to see that doctor relatively early in the system. >> well, first, i point out that the mortality for breast cancer for blacks and whites was the same in the set1970s.

this disparity started in 1981 and hassen worse every year since 1981. disparities in treatment, disparities in early detection, are a huge reason for that. you're absolutely correct. >> so in other words as the capacity to beat breast cancer improved, the disparity increased because it was about access to those new resources? >> we've got data to show about 20% of women who call themselves white get less than optimal care for breast cancer. it's about 40% to 50% of people who call themselves black who get less than optimal care for breast cancer. >> the last one i want to ask about is mental health care access because we did see kathleen sebelius talking about sort of making that even -- what do we know about that disparity? >> first of all, we were talking earlier about chronic stress, of experiencing racism, being poor, and if you develop depression, an anxiety condition, there are good treatments out there. and yet mental health care is so

under available, so underfunded, and so what do people do? they turn to alcohol, drugs, self-treatment, and those make the problem worse. and, i mean, that, if i could do one thing it would be improving treatment for mental health care and making it widely accessible. >> i live in the seventh ward in new orleans and the people living in poor communities sometimes feels like everyone has posttraumatic stress. not that you want to medicalize whole communities but you have the sense that there is care that is needed. thank you doctor and heather mcghee and avik roy. something amazing happened in an operating room in san francisco this week. this is how we all felt when we were about to get medical treatment and care. ♪ that is dr. debra cohen, a breast cancer patient. she hosted a dance party just

before undergoing a double mastectomy. she and her surgical team got their groove on to beyonce's "get me body." she hopes others will dance and send her a picture or video for her to watch while she's recovering. so far her dance video has gotten more than 5 million hits on youtube. among debra's fans, beyonce, who posted the story on her facebook page with the comment, "debra, you are awesome." the connection between breast cancer and care and mental health and beyonce only on "nerdland." up next, the military interpreter who risked his life to save u.s. soldiers and the veteran who's returning the favor. a true foot soldier is next. ♪ ♪ you get your coffee here. you get your hair cut here. you find that certain thing you were looking for here, but actually you get so much more. when you shop at these small local businesses, you support all the things that make your community great.

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monday is veterans day, the one day our nation sets aside each year to recognize and thank all the men and women who have risked their lives serving in the u.s. military. but sometimes it's the veterans

who want to show gratitude. and their thanks are not reserved exclusively for fellow americans. our foot soldier this week is matt zoeller, a former embedded combat advisor stationed in afghanistan who spent two years trying to rescue janice shinwari, the afghan interpreter who made himself a target for the taliban while keeping matt and other u.s. soldiers safe. because of his work, janus was no longer safe in afghanistan but his visa was stalled in the u.s. embassy. knowing his friend might be killed if he did not escape, matt petitioned the u.s. embassy and members of congress to issue the visa immediately. finally, on tuesday, october 29th, his efforts proved successful. matt was reunited with the man he calls brother. that night when janus touched down at d.c.'s national airport with his family. joining me now is u.s. army veteran matt zoeller. so nice to have you here. >> thanks for having me. >> when did you begin to get

concerned with his life? >> the day he saved mine. he ended up killing two taliban nig fighter. he jumped into the ditch and saw them and shot them and killed them. soon after he was placed on the taliban kill list for his actions. i was concerned his life was in grave jeopardy. as the years went on, it only became more and more in grave jeopardy as his family received threats and will he to relocate to a new base in kabul. the taliban followed him there. he's my brother. i had to do something to save him. >> you use that language, he's my brother. obviously he saved your life. for those of us who are civilians who talk about war and about the theaters of war from spaces like this, tell us what we need to know about those relationships between u.s. soldiers and men on the ground like janus that we often don't know the. >> i don't think adequate words exist to describe it. it's as close as you might be

with your children or your family the way we are to each other. it's a bond that is unspeakable and unbreakable. it literally is willing to give up your life for that other person to take care of them. i had always expected i would have that type of bond with u.s. soldiers. i nef thought i would have it with an afghan man who ended up becoming my best friend. i considered him to be my brother. he's a family member to me. >>, would like the nerdland audience to meet janus. i want to bring from washington, d.c. a week and a half since touching down at washington national airport, janice shinwari. so nice to have you here. >> thanks for having us. >> so the story matt's telling us, obviously, you were in a position of risking your life. why? >> because the one who is serving in our country all the american troops, they are fighting for afghans, for afghan people to bring peace for our people and they're fighting for

us, for all afghan people. this is our responsibility if they're in some sort of threat or they're or somebody want to hurt them or kill them, this is our responsibility to save their lives and don't let anybody to hurt our guests because they are our guests in afghanistan. >> it's fairly unusual for someone in your position as translator to have been armed. is that correct? >> yes, that's true. >> so tell me then sort of how that came to be. >> because, well, we were back income ghazni, all the americans trusted us and trained us with different type of weapons because we could support each other during the fire fight against the taliban. for that reason, we were allowed to carry guns in the base. >> so tell me, how important is the work that matt did in terms of making sure that you got safely out of afghanistan? >> actually, he saved our lives. he saved my life, my family's

life, my wife, my two kids' life. if matt didn't help us, we would be stuck in afghanistan. we might be killed by taliban. >> matt, do you feel at all as though the debt has been repaid? >> a little bit, yeah. i mean, i didn't end up killing somebody and he literally in the moment did that. but i'm just happy that our children are going to get to grow up together and play together. for me, the greatest thing in the worlds has been watching him go to his first grocery store, riding his first escalator, walking around washington, d.c. and seeing the white house and you know, he said to me the other day, i said brother, does any of this feel real? he said no, i feel like it's a dream where i'm safe. >> you all had a nice moment just before we went to air. is there anything you'd like to say to janice, matt? >>. [ speaking foreign language ] >> thank you. there's a great deal of love and brotherhood here. i'm thrilled by -- to be able to

see it. thank you so much to both matt zoller and janice. the program on the question of veterans day continues. tomorrow at noon on msnbc, we will present "taking the hill," a presentation by former congressman and iraq war veteran patrick murphy. he's hosting an hour long discussion of issues affecting the veterans community tomorrow at noon eastern time. that is our show for today. thanks to you at home for watching. i'm going to see you again tomorrow morning at 10:00 a.m. eastern where we are going to look at issues in the nfl, despite my failure on that question. we've got a lot to say about the nfl and bullying and what it means to be a man in football. plus, the role that will race played in the elections this week. now it's time for a preview of "weekends with alex witt." >> that was one of the best foot soldiers ever. thank you so much. there he goes again. the toronto mayor in hot water for his crack cocaine use. now it's getting a bit hotter.

>> raising the minimum wages. see why a new proposal is getting support from the white house and who high might it get raised. and the head coach of the miami dolphins is expected to address the media within the hour. i'll talk with thomas roberts in russia with the reigning miss universe to explain why he went there and what he hopes to accomplish. don't go anywhere. i'll be right back. for a while, i took a pill to lower my blood sugar, but it didn't get me to my goal. so i asked my doctor about victoza®. he said victoza® is different than pills. victoza® is proven to lower blood sugar and a1c. it's taken once-a-day, any time, and comes in a pen. and the needle is thin. victoza® is not for weight loss, but it may help you lose some weight. victoza® is an injectable prescription medicine that may improve blood sugar in adults with type 2 diabetes when used with diet and exercise. it is not recommended as the first medication

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